Newsletter – 22 November 2024

Dear parents and carers, 

Happy Friday! 

I’m writing en route back from Wigan, having visited Newfold Community Primary School. It’s been fantastic to collaborate with a school further afield, and I’m coming back to Scarcroft with lots of exciting new ideas. 

As ever, Scarcroft has been a hive of activity this week, and I’ve been enjoying hearing the Christmas songs from EYFS and Year 2 rehearsals drifting through from the hall. You’re in for a real treat! 

Dates for the diary

Take a look at what all our classes have been up to in the last few weeks.

Wishing you all a very happy weekend – stay warm!

Best wishes, 

Jen Mitchell 

Head of School 

Reception – Fishergate:  94.4%

Year 1 – Gillygate:   97.3%

Year 1 – Stonegate:   96.3%

Year 2 – Castlegate:   98.5%

Year 2 – Micklegate:  98.0%

Year 3 – Coppergate:   95.5%

Year 3 – Whip ma whop ma gate:   96.3%

Year 4 – Swinegate:   97.0%

Year 4 – Walmgate:   97.8%

Year 5 – Colliergate:   97.6%

Year 5 – Skeldergate:   96.4%

Year 6 – Fossgate:   97.0%

Year 6 – Goodramgate:   96.2%

We have had a fantastic time playing in our new outdoor kitchen. The children used the leaves as pancakes and sandwiches and made their own cafe. 

This week Early Years have taken part in National Nursery Rhyme week. We have learnt the rhymes Incy Wincy Spider, Old MacDonald, Twinkle Twinkle, The Big Ship Sailed and 5 currant buns. Here are our college tractors for Old MacDonald. 

On Monday we talked about Poppy Day. We learnt it is a time to remember all the soldiers who fought for us and who are still fighting for us. We made our own print poppy paintings.

In Art, we have been creating some beautiful collaborative artwork by experimenting with different types of lines. We practised different techniques and then chose our favourite to make and name a group moving picture.

In PE we have been enjoying our new ‘Growing’ dance topic and created a dance to match the different life stages of a seed. Can you tell which part of the plant we are pretending to be?

Recognition awards

1 Stonegate

Natty – For being curious and asking such interesting questions on our school trip.

Theo P. – Taking time and care with his work, and beautiful presentation.

Kaia – For settling into Year 1 well and such perfect letter formation in her writing.

Achievement trophy – Ziggy – For going above and beyond to enhance his learning.

1 Gillygate

Eloise – For her curious attitude towards our living world and involvement in our school trip.

Hannah – For always being such a good role-model and consistently good attitude to learning.

Lille – For her perseverance and hard work, even with some subjects she finds challenging.

Kindness trophy – Isaac – For always doing the small helpful things around the classroom, without expecting anything in return.

We have been learning about Microhabitats in Science lessons.

Last week, we investigated the different microhabitats that thrive in our school grounds by going on a mini beast hunt!

We have made class ‘wormeries’. Using layers of soil, sand and leaf litter, we created a perfect microhabitat for worms. We have been able to observe the way the worms move through the wormery by watching the gradual mixing of the layers.

We’ve also identified the different characteristics of invertebrates and grouped them based on our observations. We then organised questions to create a classification key.

Recognition Y2 Micklegate:

W/C: 

21/10/24: Sofia Grasic Kasteridou: For consistently working hard and her superb behaviour for learning

Kindness Trophy: Jimmy Tomlinson

4/11/24: Felix Kershaw-Gray: For excellent work, especially his imaginative and engaging writing.

11/11/24: Serenity Franks: For the fantastic effort she puts into everything she does.

Science

We have been learning about the human body and how it is able to move using the different bones and muscles. To support this Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate created some hand models from card, art straws and string in order to represent the different bones(art straws) that make up the hand and also how our muscles (string) enable movement. We found it tricky to make but were really pleased with the end results!

 RE

We have begun a new topic called ‘Where do our morals come from?’. To begin with we discussed the difference between rules and guidance. We then organised the same 10 statements into columns of guidance and rules and showed great tolerance of other people’s ideas in this area. 

3 Coppergate

Recognition awards:

• Lera – For her wonderful writing which is matching the success criteria for each lesson.
• Jacob – For his super effort and attitude since returning from half term.
• Jesse – For being an all round superstar but especially his high quality writing.
• Fadak – For her amazing determination to work hard in every lesson and her incredible progress since September.

Achievement trophy- Lyra

3 Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate

Recognition awards: 

• Teddy– For always showing a positive attitude towards his learning and being his slightly bonkers self. 
• Ray– Always showing a determined and positive attitude to everything in school. Her writing is simply blowing me away. 
• India– Being such an amazing human and always showing her true capability in everything she does. 
• Jose– Incredible determination towards his learning and providing great inputs to class discussions.

Effort trophy- Harry

Recognition: 

WALMGATE

• James CM – for his positivity and determination in all areas 
• Nell – for always being ready and positive about our learning 
• Ted – for his super effort with his independent work 

SWINEGATE

• Fletcher – being a wonderful role model of excellent learning behaviours
• Raneem – quietly and calmly always being her best in everything she does
• Marcel – brilliant effort across the curriculum
• Indigo – fantastic work in writing

Trophy Achievement – Lucas Luo

We started our new Literacy Tree book ‘Baker by the Sea’ by turning our classrooms into bakeries and making Hot (no) Coconut buns. We showed brilliant team work and the results were delicious!

We visited York Chocolate Story to support the work we have done on Victorians as well as the Geography topic will will be doing this half term called Where does our food come from? It was a fascinating day and the children represented the school brilliantly

In RE, we recently studied World Religion Day and made our own posters. 

Recognition Awards:

Y5 Skeldergate

• Jack Allison – Hardworking tries his best. Super role model to the class. Kind and helpful to everyone. Mind reader to me!
• Dexter Pagan – Fabulous attitude in Y5. Tries his very best to show how he can use English learning in all books. Patient, kind and talented street dance teacher.

Y5 Colliergate

• Jessica – Jessica is a superstar when it comes to resilience. She’s never afraid to ask for help, try something new or persevere when she finds something difficult.
• Zeke Hinchcliffe – A fantastic start to this half term. So focused and engaged. Keep it up!
• Griffin Fox-Gillet – A great start to this half term. Griffin is giving me everything I’ve asked for all the time. Keep it up Griffin!

Kindness trophy– Molly Hardy. I can’t believe Molly hasn’t been the recipient of this trophy before as she has kindness running through her veins! So helpful both in class and around the school and never has to be asked. 

Skeldergate Dojo Reward

The children decided they would like to become teachers for the day. We called it Table Teachers. We learnt about Scouts, how to fold lilies, magic tricks and even how to do a temporary tattoo!

Writing – The Lost Thing

We have just started a new unit based around the book ‘The Lost Thing’ by Shaun Tan. The children brought in their own ‘lost things’ that we have made a collection of in class. We have already written lots of different pieces of writing: sentences about what we could hear, sentences where we changed the adjective for effect, a journal entry and a letter of advice to a character. We are looking forward to creating our own lost thing and writing about it.

Dance – Street Art

In dance, our unit is themed around street art and we have become street artists! We have been amazed at the children’s creativity and focus throughout these sessions. They have blown us away! They have learnt about performing in canon and in unison and have incorporated counter balances into their routines. We can’t wait to being it altogether into a final routine. 

Peat Rigg Residential

The first three days of this half term were quite different for Year 6; we stayed for two nights at Peat Rigg Outdoor Training Centre, near Pickering. The children did all sorts of activities, including night-time orienteering, archery and abseiling from a high bridge. Every child who took part was a real credit to our school community; positive, engaged, sensible, brave and fun.

Remembrance Day

Alongside the whole school assembly and silence, Year 6 created pictures of poppies for display in the classrooms, concentrating on use of colour.

Science

We have started our new topic this half term: Light and Reflection.  Our first task was to try some experiments to prove that light travels in straight lines.

Recognition

Ryley Mill

Ryley has had an amazing start to Year 6 and he has worked really hard.  We have been particularly pleased with the enthusiasm he shows when demonstrating to the class.

Leighton Coulson

Leighton was fabulous at Peat Rigg.  He got involved in everything and used brilliant map reading skills to stop me from getting lost in the cave.

Conor Mill

Conor was an absolute Peat Rigg legend; he was sensible and focussed during tricky activities and helped the rest of his group with many things.

Adi Davidescu

Adi has shown a really positive, mature approach to work recently. He is working really hard to ensure he works to the best of his ability.